Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday report (April 7-8)

There has been a lot going on that I have not been able to get on this blog recently.  I will re-establish more consistency next week!

I thought we've had more than a few bright spots over the last few days.  On Wednesday, we did a pretty tough Breaststroke set….it went like this:

3x:

1x200 Free IM (230)

1x200 Free IM (240)

1x200 Free IM (250)

1x200 Kick (310) -- 50 Breast, 100 Fly, 50 Breast

1x200 Drill (320) -- 3on 2 under Breaststroke {the 3 on was with Dolphin Kick, 2 under with Brst K}

1x200 Breast Swim (330)

I asked the lead athletes to stay between 213-219 on the Free IMs.  Of our leaders, we saw Cole and Jack holding 209-210 (Cole) and 211-212 (Jack).  The Free IMs did not have the aspect of Speed we were looking for on the breaststroke, but were meant to keep the Heart Rate consistent throughout the set.  If you back off for the Free IM, you essentially spend half of the set cruising and "recovering"….which isn't the goal of the set.

The intervals on the set played a big role in how the set was performed.  If you look closely, you can see that coming off of the 200 Breast at the end of the round, the athletes had to do the 1st 200 Free IM on (230), then they got a break on number 2 (Free IM on 240), and again on number 3 (Free IM on 250).  The times were supposed to be about the same, but the athletes got an increasing amount of rest going into the Breaststroke portion.   We do this by design: I want the athletes to finish their 200 Breast on Round 1 and Round 2, and then instead of "falling apart" and slopping through a 200 Free IM, I want them to have to hold their strokes, streamlines, and energy levels…which is why the 200 Free IM to start each round is (2:30).  If I put it on (2:45), the interval is easy enough that it may encourage athletes to go easy.

One of the things you may not notice with this interval challenge -- is that the challenge doesn't really exist on the end of the set.   So, after 200 Breaststroke #1 and #2, the athletes have to come right back to the beginning of the next round and perform well at a sub-maximal level…but at the end of Round 3, an athletes doesn't have to hold it together afterwards -- so they are free to finally let it all go and swim their best on the end of the set.  

The interval for the 200 Kick was faster than the interval for the 200 Drill and the 200 Swim.  Why is that?  For one, I wanted to force the speed on the kick…no easy kicks allowed on this set!  I want the 200 Swim at the end of each round of 6 200s to be a 200 that is "coming off" strong efforts and good strokes!  The interval loosens up a bit on the 200 Drill, in part because off the Drill's hypoxic goal, and in part because of the fact that I wanted to ensure we were going into the 200 Swim with some (relative) rest.

We can do MUCH better as a group on the hypoxic part of things.  We still have plenty of athletes who do not do the hypoxic portion of the sets.  Breaststrokers in particular must be striving for hypoxic improvement, because breaststroke at its highest levels is a tough stroke on the respiratory system -- so we've got to TRAIN that system.  Our team is full of up-and-coming breaststrokers, but we are not quite where we can be with improved hypoxic training.  Let's get better at training FAST with less air!  All of our T2 Aquatics athletes know that we are never to take the hypoxic training too far…we don't swim more than a 25 without air on our Team, and frankly I don't really harp on people too much with hypoxic training because I don't want to shame someone into doing something they are not comfortable with.

But the truth remains: if you can't train fairly hard within building oxygen debt, then GOOD LUCK when this challenge pops up in a race:)

The 200 swims were very good.  We did the 200 Breast swims with Flipturns as usual on this set (more hypoxic work).  We had 3 guys under 220 on Round 2 and Round 3.  Jack went 216 on the end, Matt & Cole were both 218.0.  Round 2 saw Matt going 216, Jack 217, and Cole 219.1 -- solid swims for these guys.  The fastest women were Karen (2:30) and Bean (2:36) {I may be off by a second or two here…it's been a few days!}

Thursday was in many ways terrific training, but I'm sure many will remember it as a day where we didn't active our Team goals on the set.  We had plenty of fast swimming, highlighted by Paolo leading the way on the 400 Free IMs (4:09 on the end)….and a good set of 5x400s from many of our top athletes.  Rip and Jacob were both 4:14, Shawn was 4:13 if memory serves, and on the women's side Karen was 4:26 and Bean 4:28 on the end (both practice PRs)…and the best part was that the whole set of 5x400 was awesome all-around.   

We struggled getting our second wave of athletes under the times needed to finish the practice 30 minutes early.  Our staff's goal was simple: we wanted one female athlete at 4:29 or better (got it), and one at 4:34 or better (got that too), but we wanted 5 others 4:49 or better….but we only got 1 athlete to do it.  Think about it guys -- what kind of Team are we?  Are we a deep Team?  Or are we reliant on our top 5% for the Team results?  

Our women need to get better at this type of thing (this exact set…..5x400 Free IM).  To me, if we have two women going sub 4:30 (4:26 and 4:28), then we really should have a crew of girls who can go 4:35-4:43….but we simply don't have it.  Please trust me when I say that we SHOULD have this type of performance with our women, based off what I consider to be a talented, strong, group of women swimming in our pool!!  I believe that to be considered to be even a decent women's Team, it won't happen until we have 6 female athletes going sub 4:30 (with the fastest 4:18 or better).  There ya go -- there's the goal!  Is it attainable?  I certainly hope so.  We have come too far to be only as good as we were yesterday.  We did have a few Senior Performance women step up and at least show that they can average 4:55-5:05…but to not have anyone besides Karen, Bean, and Bella under 4:50?!  Let's get to work!!!!

We will do this set again in a few weeks.  Be ready.  I know we can do better as a group, with more engagement in the activity.  Remember, you are not really training when you are just swimming around waiting for practice to end.  Even the best of us get like that sometimes:) but it isn't going to be two weeks from now when we redo the set.

On Friday (today) ….I can tell you that I was very pleased to get off the plane in Baltimore to a text from Jennah, who let me know some of the outstanding 200 Kicks we did today.  According to Jennah's notes, we had the following lead kick times:  

Santi 219

Karen 222

Bean 228

Madi 230

Kailey 236 

Cole 212

Rip 213

Alex 215

Jack 219

Some of these were on a board, some on the back, and some breaststroke kick….all were outstanding and most (if not all) were lifetime best 200 Kicks.   

The fact that many people did their best 200 Kick on a day when I am out of town is a huge deal for our Team and you ALL should pat yourself on the back for holding yourself to a high standard.  You must do your best no matter what, at all possible times!  When your "Head Coach" is away, that's when many people mess around (like last month, as some of you have disused with me)….it's much better to be good no matter what and no matter who is coaching the group.  After all, our athletes are doing this to get better…not just simply please the coach, right?!

The fact is that we can be AMAZING athletes.  This year's Seniors can be STELLAR next year for their college Teams, and our T2 athletes can take it to another level as we get ready for next Fall's HS State Champs.  Be AMAZING as often as possible, and do it for you!!